Back to Darkness
by Meghan Page
Summary: Laura felt all the air leave her lungs as she realized what was wrong. It wasn't the light, it was the colors themselves. They were… gone. A Carmilla/Laura fic for the Carmilla web series.


**A/N: **Since you asked for it felixdawkins, here it is! I hope you enjoy!

Set in the same universe as Black & Bright, which you don't need to read to understand this, but it might help.

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><p>The Light went out, plunging the caves into darkness. The battle behind Laura ground to a halt as everyone simultaneously went blind. Then, tiny pinpricks of light began to emerge, filling the cavern with a soft glow. One floated by Laura's head, and she saw it was a little glowing puffball – some weird alchemy experiment, most likely.<p>

Laura quickly looked around her, and was struck with the feeling that something was very wrong. Not the fact that the fight had begun again; she knew their struggle was far from over. But everything… looked wrong. She couldn't make out the green of Danny's pants, or the orange of LaFontaine's hair. She couldn't even see the red of their blood correctly. Laura knew she should still be able to discern these colors, even in the low light – she and Carmilla had spent the night one time playing around with lighting, seeing how it changed the colors around them.

The soft glow of the puffballs shouldn't distort them this way, make them look so grey…

Laura felt all the air leave her lungs as she realized what was wrong. It wasn't the light, it was the colors themselves. They were… gone.

She collapsed to the ground, struggling to rake in ragged gasps of air. No, no, it couldn't be, it couldn't…

Late one night, when she and Carmilla had been cuddled together in bed, Carmilla had begun talking about Ell. It seemed to spill from her, like once she started she couldn't stop, and she had told Laura about their entire time together, including Ell's death. She had explained how she had been forced to watch as her mother drained Ell's lifeblood from her, and how her world had suddenly gone dark, and she realized Ell was dead. The absence of color.

But, that couldn't be what was happening now. No. Laura refused to believe it. She dragged herself over to the lip of the chasm, frantically searching its depths for any sign of movement.

"Carmilla!" she cried, as if by merely calling her she could bring the vampire up from the depths. "_Carmilla!_"

She heard a laugh from below her, and leaned out farther over the edge, her heart in her throat. But instead of her roommate's beautiful smile, she was met with the twisted smirk of the Dean.

The woman was clinging to the side of the pit, barely holding on by her fingertips, but she still let out another malicious laugh as Laura's head came into view.

"You stupid, naïve girl. Do you really think she could have survived that?" she sneered, and her words hit Laura like a physical blow. The Dean's manic smile grew wider at the expression on her face. "I can see that you don't. Maybe now you'll realize how foolish this entire mission of yours was."

Laura heard several sets of footsteps come up next to her, but couldn't tear her eyes away from the Dean to see whom they belonged to.

Noticing her growing audience, the Dean raised her voice, continuing on her tirade. "You fools don't know what you just did," she howled, spittle flying from her lips. "You've no idea of the repercussions of your actions. Destroying the Light will end in your destruction, you'll see. You'll regret this, I swear to you…"

"Hey!" Laura shakily climbed to her feet, rage quickly filling her body, making her feel slightly lightheaded. She stared down at the Dean with all the contempt she could muster. "Sorry, but the students of Silas University would like a new dean, because, A, you're a callous, evil witch." She paused for a second, pretending to think, then continued, "Yep, that one's it, A."

She strode over to where a rock was balanced precariously on the edge just above the Dean's head, and, without a second's pause, gave it a hearty push. It rolled smoothly over the edge and struck the Dean square in the chest, knocking her from her handhold and sending her screaming into the depths.

There was a moment of silence as the Dean's screams faded away, then the gathered students erupted in cheers. They laughed and hugged each other, and there were even some tears.

But Laura heard nothing but a hollow ringing in her ears. She stared at the spot where the Dean had disappeared, unable to look away and face the new reality around her.

Finally, her friends realized she hadn't joined in the celebration. "Laura!" Danny called, running up to her and laying a hand on her shoulder. Laura flinched and squeezed her eyes closed. "Hey, Laura, what's wrong?" Danny leaned down slightly to try to look in her face.

"She's dead," Laura whispered, wrapping her arms around her stomach. Tears leaked from between her closed lids.

"Yeah, exactly!" Danny said, her brow furrowing in confusion. "The Dean's dead. We did it!"

"Not her," Laura said. Slowly she opened her eyes, and felt her heart break anew at the grey where bright red and blue should be. "Carmilla."

Danny straightened in shock, taking a tiny step back. "Are you sure?" she questioned.

"I'm sure," Laura said, more tears running down her cheeks as she glanced into the chasm beside them.

"How can you know?" Danny asked, following her gaze. "I mean, she might have survived somehow, there's still hope…"

"No." Laura stepped away, clutching her ribs as if she was holding herself together. There was no need to keep her relationship with Carmilla a secret now, but for some reason Laura couldn't bring herself to reveal it. Habit, maybe. "I just – I just know. She's gone."

The walk back to the dorm was torture. Where Laura had gotten used to seeing pale green grass or red brick building, now all that was left were dull greys. Even the shadows, though that had always been black, even when the colors were there, felt flat and lifeless, as if the colors had taken the very vitality of reality with them.

She walked among her friends in a daze, letting them guide her. She could barely look at them, barely stand to see the pity in their colorless eyes. They all thought she had lost the girl she had a crush on, the girl she may have even loved. They didn't realize she had lost so much more.

When they got to her room, Laura crossed to her computer and turned on the camera, more out of habit than anything. The little blinking light, usually red, now nothing, felt like another blow to her already beaten body. But she kept herself together, determined to film, to let the rest of Silas know what happened.

"So, a completely unexpected thing just happened," she told the camera, as her friends sat around her. "We won. We actually won. We won…" She had underestimated how hard this would be. Tears threatened to choke her, but she pushed them down, needing to finish. "And Carmilla's dead."

She barely had time to switch the camera off before sobs were wracking her body. Tears poured from her eyes, blurring her vision, and she was strangely grateful, because it meant she couldn't see the black-and-white world she had been returned to.

Some time later, after a massive dose of mothering from both Perry and Danny, Laura found herself sitting on her bed, her comforter tucked up to her lap and her crocheted blanket around her shoulders. Her eyes were dry, but still barely able to focus on her surroundings.

She sat in numb emptiness throughout the video Danny was making, only speaking to share Carmilla's part of the story, to relate her stupid heroism. She kept her eyes unfocused, barely able to stand looking at the room around her. Every second of monochrome vision was a slap in the face that Carmilla was dead.

Soon after the video was posted, everyone filed out of the room, back to their own rooms and beds. Even Betty left, ushered out by Perry with the promise of an extra mattress. Danny lingered for a moment, but eventually she left too, conscious of Laura's need to be alone.

As the door finally creaked shut, Laura felt her careful control begin to crumble. She finally let herself look around the room, her body shaking with suppressed sobs. It was all wrong. She could barely make out the cheetah-print on Carmilla's sheets, the pattern blurring into the same muddy grey. The pillow at her headboard hadn't changed at least – she could still make out the black writing on the white t-shirt…

Laura suddenly flung the blanket from around her shoulders, digging the pillow from behind her back. She stared at its dingy shade as if willing it to return to its usual bright color. This was the yellow pillow, the one Carmilla love to steal, right? Wasn't it?

She buried her face in the drab fabric, muffling the sobs that ripped their way up her throat.

The next few weeks were the hardest of her life.

Laura spent the first couple of days in her bed, sleeping to hide from the black-and-white world around her. At least in her dreams she could almost remember color.

Finally, though, she realized she couldn't keep going like this. The color was gone, yes. But she couldn't spend the rest of her life wallowing in bed. Carmilla wouldn't want that. She had died so Laura could live.

Besides, if Carmilla could survive losing the color, seeing the love of her life die in front of her, and spending 70 years in a coffin, she could survive going to class.

When Danny and Kirsch saw her show up for Lit class, they both looked so shocked that Laura almost smiled. Almost. Maybe she would get there eventually.

She kept expecting it to get easier, for the joint loss to become more bearable, but it never did, not really. It was hard to move on when every single sight, no matter what you were looking at reminded you of what you had been taken from you. But she kept going, kept struggling, even though each time she opened her eyes in the morning was like rubbing fresh salt in her wounds.

Each morning as she woke up, the first thing she would see would be that damned pillowcase. And each morning, she would remind herself, _yellow_. She couldn't call back the way it looked, but she felt like if she could just remember the word, the incredible gift that Carmilla had given her wouldn't waste away completely.

She got back into a routine, and it helped, although the pain never really went away. She started going to classes regularly, she had lunch or dinner with her friends, she finished her assignments.

She still struggled with them, though, and some were more difficult than others, like the psychology test she was currently preparing for. After an all-nighter of studying, Laura had finally fallen asleep in the small hours of the morning. When her alarm went off that morning, she was still so bleary that she could barely focus on the green numbers on the display as she slapped it off. She buried her face back in her yellow pillow, just for a few more minutes…

Wait.

Laura's eyes flew open and she sat bolt upright, staring at the pillow below her. _Yellow_. Her breath caught in her throat. She looked around her room, taking in the bright hues that surrounded her. The colors were back.

They… they couldn't be. All the stories said you could only see the colors when you met your soulmate. Laura's soulmate was dead. Carmilla was…

"Hey, cutie." A low, rough voice sounded from the doorway, and Laura almost fell out of her bed as she whipped around to see who it was.

Laura stared, transfixed by the rich brown eyes, the red blood smeared across the girl's face. She slowly climbed to her feet, walking towards her as if in a trance.

"Car- Carmilla?" she murmured, reaching a trembling hand towards the vampire's face. "Is that really you?"

Carmilla leaned forward, closing the last few millimeters between Laura's hand and her cheek. Laura gasped at the feel of real, solid flesh beneath her fingertips, and quickly brought her other hand up to frame Carmilla's face.

"It's really me, Laura. I'm here," Carmilla said, tears glistening in her eyes. "I came back."

Laura let out a breathy laugh, running her hands down Carmilla's neck, over her shoulders, her collarbone. "But how? I –" She shook her head, cutting herself off. "That can wait. Right now, there's something more important I need to say."

Carmilla wrapped her hands around Laura's waist, pulling her closer, and rested their foreheads together. "And what's that?" she asked.

Laura drew back slightly, looking deep into Carmilla's eyes. "I love you," she said, with all the sincerity she could muster.

Carmilla's entire face lit up with elation. Her hands slid into Laura's hair, gently drawing her closer. "I love you too, my Laura," she whispered, just before their lips met in a long, slow kiss.


End file.
